A review by the Office of the Comptroller General asked whether taxpayers are getting value for money from BC Ferries and whether BC Ferries was meeting the objectives its governance model was created for.

Although the report concluded BC Ferries was relatively well run, it found pay packages to be over the top. BC Ferries is still a government monopoly and still gets millions of taxpayer's dollars every year to operate, but appears to be accountable to no one.

The report calls for a new governance model to achieve greater accountability from BC Ferries and its board, and greater oversight from its shareholder (the BC Ferry Authority) and the BC Ferry Commission.

But as taxpayers, the last thing we need is yet more bureaucratic fat laid over the current system's problems.  

The focus of most of the outrage is on the CEO salary. The million dollar man is making twice the salary of CEOs at other large government sector entities such as BC Hydro. His pay level is rationalized by saying it is comparable to other similar companies. The report found, however, that the companies used for comparison were inappropriate. Instead of using Coca Cola and Ford, the comparison should have been made with other public sector entities such as BC Hydro

So what requires much more scrutiny is just how the salary was arrived at. The behaviour of the members of the Ferry Authority needs a more thorough investigation. The Ferry Authority acts as the sole shareholder of BC Ferries and is supposed  to appoint the Board members and set Board and executive salaries. What did the Authority do? It appointed itself to the Board then gave itself and the Ferries executives big pay increases. It took a Comptroller General's report to reveal this because it would appear that politicians are not minding the store.

The report found the retainer for the Board of Directors is 3-5 times higher than allowed under Treasury Board rules. True, BC Ferries is not a technically a crown corporation so not subject to those rules, but still operates as a government monopoly.

The solution here is not to layer yet another level of bureaucratic fat over the accountability and oversight problems. All government organizations must face the competitive discipline of the private sector. Otherwise, nothing prevents this type of abuse from happening again and again. The BC Ferries monopoly must be removed because as we've seen in the past with ICBC and the BC Lottery Corporation, oversight seems to be a recurring problem in the government sector.  

When we put all this together with the massive salary increases for bureaucrats and MLAs, we see that citizens and taxpayers are not well served by the government sector - in fact, we are getting shafted.

It's time to get government out of the business of providing services better provided by the private sector.  Taxes just can't go any higher to pay for a system that is unaccountable and out of control.